Pakistanis have shared my sorrow, says Pearl's widow

The pregnant widow of the journalist Daniel Pearl said yesterday she had great affection for Pakistan despite the murder of her husband by Islamic fundamentalists.

In her first interview since a video revealed last week that Mr Pearl had been killed, Mariane Pearl praised investigators who were hunting the killers. She said that the Pakistani people had showed her great compassion since her husband was abducted in Karachi on 23 January.

"My feelings and my affection for this country have not changed because of what happened here. On the contrary, the people have shown tremendous support to me. They have shared my sorrow," she told CNN. "I know they feel bad, ashamed, sad about what happened."

Mrs Pearl, who is seven months pregnant with the couple's first child, said Pakistani investigators had shown unlimited amounts of courage despite having limited resources.

Later, speaking on ABC, Mrs Pearl urged investigators to continue their search for the killers of her husband, a journalist with The Wall Street Journal. The body of Mr Pearl, 38, has still not been recovered. In a further development, Pakistan's President, General Pervez Musharraf,discussed with the US ambassador, Wendy Chamberlin, the possible extradition to America of the man suspected of masterminding the abduction of Mr Pearl, who was seized while trying to contact a radical Islamic group.

The meeting came a day after President George Bush said Washington wanted to put British-born Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh on trial in the United States. Mr Sheikh appeared in court in Karachi yesterday for formal identification by a Pakistani reporter as the man he introduced to Mr Pearl shortly before the American reporter disappeared.

* Gunmen shot dead nine people and wounded at least 10 in an attack on a Shia mosque in Rawalpindi, near Islamabad, yesterday. It was the second attack on Shia Muslims in less than a week in Pakistan's central Punjab province.